


no take-backs

by raewrites



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood, Fluff, IwaOi Week, M/M, kid!oiiwa won't quit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-15 23:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2247912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewrites/pseuds/raewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know, you’re my friend, Iwa-chan.” </p><p>When they’re seven years old, Oikawa says the phrase like a statement rather than a suggestion, as a known fact rather than an issue prime for debate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no take-backs

**Author's Note:**

> IWAOI WEEK IS HAPPENING 
> 
> and like most things, i'm late to the party. this is day one's prompt, but i'm writing it on day two. figures.

“You know, you’re my friend, Iwa-chan.”   
  
When they’re seven years old, Oikawa says the phrase like a statement rather than a suggestion, as a known fact rather than an issue prime for debate. He says it only a week after the two meet for the first time, Iwaizumi’s bug catching net colliding with Oikawa’s forehead in a freak playground accident, resulting in a nurse’s visit and a forced apology said between stubborn lips, prompted out of Iwaizumi with everything short of physical intervention.   
  
“Look at my cool band-aid.” Oikawa tells him the following morning, aggressively poking Iwaizumi in the shoulder during lunch period, the force of it causing the rice ball Iwaizumi had been holding to slip through his fingers and fall onto the floor, crumbling pitifully at his feet.  
  
“I don’t care about your band-aid!” He huffs, turning around to meet Oikawa, bright-eyed, smile bordering on ruthless satisfaction well beyond his years, “I don’t even know your name.”  
  
“Oikawa Tooru.” Oikawa says almost immediately, leveling himself onto his knees to lean into Iwaizumi’s space, “You hit me with your net yesterday, dummy.”  
  
“I remember _that._ ” Iwaizumi says, glaring, eyes narrowing as Oikawa purposefully takes a dramatic bite from his own rice ball, bits of rice sticking to the pink curve of his childishly grubby cheeks, “They took my net away.”  
  
“Even _I_ know you’re not supposed to bring nets to school.” Oikawa replies, the pompous inclination of his voice grating on Iwaizumi’s innately short nerves, “You were gonna get in trouble anyway.”  
  
Iwaizumi huffs, indignant, turning around in his seat to busy himself with poking at the remaining food in his bento, though all that remains are vegetables his mom _knows_ he doesn’t like.   
  
“You don’t like vegetables?”  
  
Iwaizumi looks over his shoulder to see Oikawa leaning over the front of his desk into Iwaizumi’s space, rice ball still held in his hands, tauntingly close to Iwaizumi’s face at the other glances into his bento box, “You should eat your vegetables.”  
  
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Iwaizumi grumbles, throwing an elbow back to knock the other off-kilter, Oikawa nearly tumbling out of his chair before he eventually rights himself with an affronted whine.   
  
“Hey! You made me drop my rice ball!”  
  
Perking up, Iwaizumi swings his legs around to properly witness pure gratification depicted in the mess on the floor, equal to his own injustice as one of their classmates walks past, scuffing dust and other debris onto the woeful pile of timely karma.   
  
“Good, you made me drop mine.” Suddenly curious, Iwaizumi glances into Oikawa’s own bento box, noting the distinct lack of anything besides seemingly untouched vegetables, “Looks like you just have veggies too.”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
“You don’t like them either, do you.”  
  
Opening his mouth to retort, but falling short of anything with which to defend himself, Oikawa settles for pout, stubborn, bottom lip sticking out dramatically as Iwaizumi shrugs, mumbling an eventual, “Well, we’re even now, then.” one Oikawa considers with a hum before finally relenting, slumping forward face-down on his desk, whining into its wooden surface, muffled words drifting uselessly to Iwaizumi’s unsympathetic ears.   
  
“But I’m so huuuuungry.”   
  
“It’s your fault, you know.”  
  
“Is not, uh…” Oikawa pauses, eyebrows creased with a thought he eventually dubs as not worth the effort when he asks a blunt, “What’s your name again?”  
  
“Iwaizumi Hajime.”  
  
“Is not, Iwa-chan!”  
  
“Hey, don’t use -chan!”  
  
“I’ll use what I want, Iwa _-chan!"_  
  
“Tooru-kun, inside voice.”  
  
“Yeah, Tooru- _chan_. Inside voice.”  
  
Oikawa learns early on that Iwaizumi’s shoulder is prime for pinching, Iwaizumi himself realizing Oikawa’s nose bleeds much easier than his neighbor’s down the street.   
  
And their teacher amends to separating the two of them in every conceivable situation, excluding the principle’s office, a space they find themselves in on more than one occasion during the course of the following week.   
  
It’s in said principle’s office, the two of them left alone temporarily as the phone rings, their punishment postponed until the inevitable dial tone, that Oikawa says those words Iwaizumi so clearly remembers.   
  
“You know, you’re my friend, Iwa-chan.”  
  
Iwaizumi watches as the other swings his legs absently, staring at a spot on the ground, non-confrontational for the first time Iwaizumi can remember since meeting him. Oikawa almost seems shy in that moment, shoulders hunched as if he’s anticipating something unpleasant, biting the inside of his cheek after he speaks, perhaps regretting, but Iwaizumi can’t quite tell.  
  
“But we always fight.”  
  
“I fight with my sisters too.” Oikawa mumbles in reply, still hanging his head, though he sits up a bit straighter, “But I still like them.”  
  
“You like me?” Iwaizumi asks, tilting his head in an attempt to catch Oikawa’s expression, to determine if the other is simply teasing him again, lying to catch his attention before scoffing in his face, parading on about how he had ‘Fooled you, Iwa-chan!’.  
  
“I guess.” Oikawa sighs, almost exasperated, and Iwaizumi struggles to determine where said exasperation is meant to be focused.   
  
They sit in silence for a while, present moment beginning its steady transition to memory as the clock on the wall ticks away the seconds, a silence that breaks when Oikawa suddenly leaps out of his chair, wheeling around on his heel to face Iwaizumi, hands balled into defiant fists on his hips, face scrunched up in determination as he leans into Iwaizumi’s space, the other taken aback enough to tilt himself away slightly, looking upon Oikawa with perplexed scrutiny.    
  
“Wha-“  
  
“And I’m _your_ friend too, Iwa-chan.”  
  
“Says who?”  
  
“Says me!” Oikawa exclaims, poking a single finger into Iwaizumi’s chest, “It’s like the playground rules! We’re friends now, no take-backs!”  
  
“It’s no _tag_ -backs, stupid.” As Oikawa opens and closes his mouth, making stubborn noises of protest at what he had been positive was a well-formulated analogy, Iwaizumi eventually sighs and stands up as well, crossing his arms over his chest and meeting Oikawa’s eyes with his own, saying a rushed, “Okay yeah fine you’re my friend too.”  
  
“Yeah, I am, Iwa-chan. That’s what I said.”  
  
“I’ll hit you.”  
  
***  
  
“You know, I love you, Iwa-chan.”   
  
Oikawa almost hums the words, akin to those spoken a decade earlier, still definite, still concrete and lacking room for other considerations, but more genuine somehow, lacking the childish entitlement of its predecessor, replaced with something Iwaizumi would perhaps pin as ‘vulnerability’.   
  
The words stick to the base of Iwaizumi’s ribs, magnifying each beat of his heart as he looks in the direction of the other lying on top of his bed, turning a volleyball over in his hands, homework forgotten at his feet. Iwaizumi moves his own books aside to adjust himself in a kneeling position on the ground, arms crossed on the bed’s surface, looking at Oikawa with creased eyebrows.   
  
“That’s quite the proclamation.”  
  
“It’s true.” Oikawa says, setting the volleyball above his head, the pause of silence between them peppered with the soft sound of the volleyball hitting the pads of Oikawa’s fingers, “And keeping with the honesty thing, I would kiss you. Right now.”  
  
Iwaizumi’s breath catches in his throat, flushing red across the bridge of his nose, noting the same shade of pink coloring Oikawa’s own ears despite his seemingly collected composition, wavering confidence in a blunt attempt at a confession strikingly similar to other, less serious conversations between them, and Iwaizumi feels adoration like a warm gust of wind between his ribs, encircling his heart as Oikawa tilts his head to face him, expression pulled into one of slight worriment.   
  
“Hey, Iwa-chan, you zoning out or something?”  
  
“I love you too.” Iwaizumi replies, quick at the end of Oikawa’s question, surprising both of them, eyes wide and cheeks red, heartbeats deafening in the following stillness until a grin breaks across Oikawa’s lips, the other sitting up to lean into Iwaizumi’s space, a space he’s made as much his own as Iwaizumi’s in the years they’ve spent together.   
  
“Of course you do.”  
  
“Don’t just assume _everyone_ is in love with you, dumbass."  
  
“But _you_ are.”  
  
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes, though a smile lingers dangerously at the corner of his lips, tugging encouragingly for Iwaizumi to match the grin on Oikawa’s, encouraging him to lean forward enough to press them together for the first time, to breathe him in like air to his lungs, instinctual, essential.   
  
“So what?” He says instead, eyes flicking up and down Oikawa’s face, from the hair curling stubbornly into his eyes, upturned nose, cheeks somewhat resembling those of years ago, the same shade of pink, lips tugged into a grin Iwaizumi would perhaps find irritating if he didn’t want to feel them so damn bad, like an ache he’s been made suddenly aware of, lingering in the contours of his being, building into a want that surpasses his inhibitions.    
  
“So, no take-backs.”  
  
“It’s _tag_ -backs.”  
  
“Okay, whatever, Iwa-chan. So about that kiss?”  
  
“I’m waiting.”  
  
“Wait, really?”  
  
 _“Still_ waiting.”  
  
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”  
  
“I’ll hit you."


End file.
